Strategy

The aim of church revitalisation is to bring a church back to spiritual health and vitality.

Here is a simple definition of a healthy church -

A healthy church is a fellowship of redeemed believers

• who love God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, with all their strength (Mark 12:30)
• who love people (Mark 12:31)
• in their cultural context

Two things are necessary to enable revitalisation -

• a vision
• a process

A vision

The diagram below presents a vision of a church which is adapted to our contemporary European context. The diagram is flexible and can be used for all types of churches, wherever they may be and whatever their denomination.

A brief explanation of the Healthy Church infographic

The aim of this vision of a healthy church is to focus on what seems absolutely foremost in the teaching of the New Testament. There may be other things which different denominations emphasize, but this vision is not a doctrinal statement. It is rather the basis on which any church can strive to be healthy. This has been so all through the last two millennia, and it is still the case today.

• A healthy church is centred on the Gospel

The number one element must be the centrality of the Gospel. The apostle Paul made this clear in 1 Corinthians chapter 15: he reminds his readers that it is by this gospel that they are saved … “if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain”. This gospel concerns Jesus, who died, was buried and rose again on the third day, and the meaning of these events must be interpreted “according to the Scriptures”.

That is all you need to know and believe to be saved! On the other hand, the rest of the New Testament shows how the apostles made every effort to link all their teaching on to this central truth, whether they were discussing doctrine or the Christian life style. So we must do the same.

Do our songs and hymns reflect this priority? Does our singing just praise God’s greatness, his power and his holiness (a Jew or a Muslim can sing words to that effect) or does it exalt Jesus, our Lord and Saviour?

Does our preaching try to link the whole Bible narrative to the gospel? The Old Testament prepares hearts and minds for the coming of Jesus, the New Testament revolves around the Gospel which is now revealed.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “I resolved to know nothing when I was with you except Jesus-Christ and him crucified” (2.2) and to the Galatians: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (6.14).

This is the message which the world needs! Yes, right and wrong really exist and we can openly recognize our personal wrong-doing (rather than feeling a victim of circumstances) without being engulfed in guilt feelings because we have been forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  And now we can live in freedom as God’s children. Is this the central message of our churches? Or have legalistic practices or secondary issues become more important? A genuine excitement for the gospel must be the starting point for church revitalization.

2) A healthy church is where Christians learn to love God and other people.

Have we really understood how fundamental this is? Let’s look at this in three steps. It might seem obvious but it is truly revolutionary, and the third stage is where the relevance to church revitalization kicks in.

• In the first epistle of John, we read that “God is light” (1.7) and “God is love” (4.8 and 4.16). God is holy and God is merciful. Love has existed as a reality for all eternity in our Trinitarian God, through the relationships between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. A perfect, selfless love because God is without sin. And this impacts the lives of the men and women he created. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (4.9). “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (3.16).

• When Jesus was asked which of all the commandments is the most important, he answered: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And the second is this: Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12.30-31).
• We learn to love God by trusting him and obeying him (1 John 4.16 and 5.3)
• We learn to love our fellow Christians and this shows people that we are disciples of Jesus (John 13.35)
• We learn to love unbelievers as Paul prayed for the Thessalonians – “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else” (1 Thess 3.12).

• Jesus loved the people he met. And we are called to be like him. In today’s secular world, the only contact people have with the Christian faith is the Christians they know. For that reason, evangelism means building relationships with people, listening to them, being interested in them, praying for them. And always being ready to share the Gospel as opportunities arise. People are suspicious of “methods” of evangelism, and Christians can often feel guilty about evangelism as a “duty” which they have to perform. Loving people is the only honest motivation we have and fits into the organic way (not the mechanical way!) in which a church grows. People discover the biblical worldview by being with their Christian friends and acquaintances. As a colleague working among students wrote: “They discover that the gospel is tangible, that it is real through relationships, by seeing Christians who have joyful, trusting, respectful relationships with each other. They see how the gospel changes the way we eat, walk, sleep, laugh and weep. They see how God answers prayers.” So loving God and loving others is an essential feature of a healthy church.

3) A healthy church is contextualized.

When we read the New Testament, we see to what extent the church had to face new issues as it expanded beyond the confines of Jerusalem. Paul wrote 3 whole chapters in his first letter to the Corinthian church about the question of meat offered to idols. Three chapters which contain a quite complex argument due the nature of the call of Christians to be in the world but not of it (John 17.16-18). Or as I sometimes say: “The boat must be in the water but the water mustn’t be in the boat”. But one thing is sure - the Jerusalem Christians never had to face this question of food offered to idols, but the early Christians had to figure out their relationship with each culture in which they preached the gospel and planted churches.

These chapters (1 Cor 8-10) try to give some instruction on two separate but inseparable issues,

• How to protect Christians from the influence of the culture
• How to reach out to unbelievers in each culture. That is why in chapter 9 Paul describes how he tries to be like a Jew to win the Jews and like one not having the law to win those not having the law (adding “so that by all possible means he might win some”).

Contextualization means being adapted to our local situation, our national situation (with all the weight of its history) and our post-Christian, secular European context. The original Lausanne Covenant of 1974 puts it like this: “Under God, the result will be the rise of churches deeply rooted in Christ and closely related to their culture.”

This means that although we hold the Gospel and Biblical authority in common, not every Evangelical Church will look the same (we should avoid any “copy and paste” approach to church planting and church revitalisation). Neither will churches necessarily use the latest technology and music style (although some will). What it does mean is that churches will avoid living in a bubble, isolated from what is happening in the world. So a revitalised church will seek to understand and engage with the surrounding culture by equipping Christians to navigate it and integrate faith into their everyday life.

This is nothing new! Here is what John Calvin wrote in volume 4 (chapter 10) of his “Institutes” in the early 16th Century about the way a church can organize its meetings. His willingness to adapt to different contexts is remarkable!

As God has not delivered any express command, because things of this nature are not necessary to salvation, and, for the edification of the Church, they should be accommodated to the varying circumstances of each age and nation. So it will be proper, as the interest of the Church may require, to change and abrogate the old, as well as to introduce new forms. (…) God has not been pleased to prescribe every particular that we ought to observe because he foresaw that this depended on the nature of the times, and that one form would not suit all ages.

• A healthy church will gather to fill the tank of Christians so that the blessings will spill over to others.

Why do we meet together as the gathered church, whether it be in person or remote? We have a good answer in Hebrews 10.24-25 -

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, 

not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging

one another.” 

This is the only place in the New Testament where we are instructed to regularly meet together, and the reason is very clear – to be encouraged to love people and to do good. We encourage each other through our worship, our prayers and the teaching we receive as we remember God’s love for us, and (as 1 Thessalonians 3.12 puts it) this love will “overflow for each other and for everyone”.  This obviously impacts everything we do all through the week.

In other words, we meet together to be filled with courage to live for God’s glory 24/7. To be salt and light in our environment. To love the people around us. This aim will impact what we do together in the gathered church, and will probably lead us to rethink what we can and should do in our services and meetings.

5) A healthy church scatters throughout society during the week and sends us all out as messengers of the gospel.
How many people in Europe today have any idea of the Gospel? Do they know what the Bible really teaches? How many people are really seeking God? And if they are, how many will come spontaneously to an Evangelical church to find answers? Probably very few.

Why is this? Because the Christian faith is no longer considered plausible. It no longer seems reasonable, not worth looking into, not worth taking into consideration. They think that Christianity is a thing of the past, even a source of intolerance.

In our secular world

• Each individual sets themselves up as their own source of authority, they are self-governing, without any reference to God
• Personal flourishing is the main objective (“be yourself”, “follow your heart, it knows the way”)

Yet this doesn’t seem to satisfy people. They are still looking for a meaning for their lives, they are still trying to find out who they are (their identity). But the attraction of screens doesn’t give them the space to explore this before they are distracted by a new and fascinating link.

In fact, the only contact people have with the Christian faith is their day-to-day contact with Christians. As the “scattered church”, believers have relationships within the family, or at their place of work or study, in their neighbourhood or with their friends.

As Christians, we can show that our faith in Jesus is plausible, when we live it out all through the week so that it becomes visible and tangible.

• Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven (Matthew 5.16)
• Live such good lives among the pagans that (…), they may see your good deeds and glorify God … (1 Peter 2.12)
• Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders;make the most of every opportunity.Let conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. (Colossians 4.5-6)

This is so important because in today’s world, user feedback plays an important role, for example when purchasing anything on-line. In other words, the messenger precedes the message. And we are the “users” of Christianity, the recommenders of faith in Jesus.

So let’s learn to love the people around us and live out our trust in God in very practical ways, showing the peace we have in Christ despite the troubled times we live in and the trustworthiness of his promises by being trustworthy ourselves in our dealings with others.

A process

Revitalisation involves a process. The flow-chart below summarises the stages through which the leadership team must lead the church over a period of time.

This process comprises several simultaneous dimensions -

• the spiritual area (living out a relationship with God)
• the social area (relationships between Christians and with non-Christians)
• the societal area (the cultural context of the church)
• the structural area (in particular leadership)
• the strategic area (change management)

Follow-up

Bearing in mind the particular context of each church, training or mentoring is almost indispensable in order to implement practically what is shown in these diagrams.

I am available to help you anywhere in Europe. If you wish to organise a conference or a meeting with your church or denomination (in person or by zoom), please contact me at – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Please also look at the News tab of the menu because there may be a training session somewhere which you could attend.